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16-letter words containing p, a, b, o

  • bootstrap loader — (operating system)   A short program loaded from non-volatile storage and used to bootstrap a computer. On early computers great efforts were expended on making the bootstrap loader short, in order to make it easy to toggle in via the front panel switches. It was just clever enough to read in a slightly more complex program (usually from punched cards or paper tape), to which it handed control. This program in turn read the application or operating system from a magnetic tape drive or disk drive. Thus, in successive steps, the computer "pulled itself up by its bootstraps" to a useful operating state. Nowadays the bootstrap loader is usually found in ROM or EPROM, and reads the first stage in from a fixed location on the disk, called the "boot block". When this program gains control, it is powerful enough to load the actual OS and hand control over to it. A diskless workstation can use bootp to load its OS from the network.
  • bootstrap memory — memory that allows new programs to be entered because some simple preliminary instructions or information are already built in.
  • boston cream pie — a cake of two layers with icing and a creamy filling
  • boston tea party — a raid in 1773 made by citizens of Boston (disguised as Indians) on three British ships in the harbour as a protest against taxes on tea and the monopoly given to the East India Company. The contents of several hundred chests of tea were dumped into the harbour
  • boundary dispute — dispute between neighbours about the boundary between their properties
  • bouquet larkspur — a plant, Delphinium grandiflorum, of eastern Asia, having blue or whitish flowers and hairy fruit.
  • bowman's capsule — a membranous, double-walled capsule surrounding a glomerulus of a nephron.
  • brain aid prolog — (language)   (BAP) A parallel Prolog environment for transputer systems by Frank Bergmann <[email protected]>, Martin Ostermann <[email protected]>, and Guido von Walter <[email protected]> of Brain Aid Systems GbR. BAP is based on a model of communicating sequential Prolog processes. The run-time system consists of a multi-process operating system with support for several applications running concurrently.
  • brake horsepower — the rate at which an engine does work, expressed in horsepower. It is measured by the resistance of an applied brake
  • branchiopneustic — breathing by means of gills, as certain aquatic insect larvae.
  • break-even point — When a company reaches break-even point, the money it makes from the sale of goods or services is just enough to cover the cost of supplying those goods or services, but not enough to make a profit.
  • broadloom carpet — any carpet woven on a wide loom and not having seams, especially one wider than 54 inches (137 cm).
  • bronchopneumonia — inflammation of the lungs, originating in the bronchioles
  • brood parasitism — a type of parasitism in which a bird (brood parasite), as a cowbird or European cuckoo, lays and abandons its eggs in the nest of another species
  • broomrape family — the plant family Orobanchaceae, characterized by scaly, leafless herbaceous plants that are parasitic on the roots of other plants and have irregular flowers and many-seeded capsular fruit, and including beechdrops, broomrape, and squawroot.
  • burkitt lymphoma — a rare type of tumour of the white blood cells, occurring mainly in Africa and associated with infection by Epstein-Barr virus
  • bypass capacitor — a capacitor which provides a low-impedance path for alternating current while not passing any direct current
  • bypass operation — an operation involving redirection of blood flow, either to avoid a diseased blood vessel or in order to perform heart surgery
  • cabbage palmetto — a tropical American fan palm, Sabal palmetto, with edible leaf buds and leaves used in thatching
  • can-not help but — to give or provide what is necessary to accomplish a task or satisfy a need; contribute strength or means to; render assistance to; cooperate effectively with; aid; assist: He planned to help me with my work. Let me help you with those packages.
  • capacity booking — a time when someone has booked the whole of a venue or the maximum amount of something available
  • capsule wardrobe — a collection of clothes and accessories that includes only items considered essential
  • carbon footprint — Your carbon footprint is a measure of the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by your activities over a particular period.
  • carbonless paper — a sheet of paper impregnated with dye which transfers writing or typing onto the copying surface below without the necessity for carbon pigment
  • carboxypeptidase — any of several digestive enzymes that catalyze the removal of an amino acid from the end of a peptide chain having a free carbonyl group.
  • chernobyl packet — (networking)   /cher-noh'b*l pak'*t/ A network packet that induces a broadcast storm and/or network meltdown, named in memory of the April 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine. The typical scenario involves an IP Ethernet datagram that passes through a gateway with both source and destination Ethernet address and IP address set as the respective broadcast addresses for the subnetworks being gated between. Compare Christmas tree packet.
  • chomp at the bit — champ at the bit (see phrase under champ1)
  • cobra de capello — a cobra, Naja tripudians, that has ringlike markings on the body and exists in many varieties in S and SE Asia
  • commonplace book — a notebook in which quotations, poems, remarks, etc, that catch the owner's attention are entered
  • companionability — The state of being companionable, suitability for companionship.
  • comparable worth — the doctrine that a woman's and man's pay should be equal when their work requires equal training, skills, and responsibilities.
  • complex variable — a variable to which complex numbers may be assigned as value.
  • cooperative bank — a cooperative savings institution, chartered and regulated by a state or the federal government, that receives deposits in exchange for shares of ownership and invests its funds chiefly in loans secured by first mortgages on homes.
  • cops and robbers — a children's game in which a group of players imitate the behavior of police and of thieves, as in pursuing and capturing.
  • cops-and-robbers — A cops-and-robbers film, television programme, or book is one whose story involves the police trying to catch criminals.
  • cracked up to be — alleged or believed to be
  • cuban royal palm — a feather palm, Roystonea regia, of tropical America, having a trunk that is swollen in the middle, drooping leaves from 10 to 15 feet (3 to 5 meters) long, and small, round fruit.
  • cytotrophoblasts — Plural form of cytotrophoblast.
  • desktop database — Macintosh file system
  • development bank — A development bank is a bank that provides money for projects in poor countries or areas.
  • disposable goods — consumer goods that are used up a short time after purchase, including perishables, newspapers, clothes, etc
  • double occupancy — a type of travel accommodation, as in a hotel, for two persons sharing the same room: The rate is $35 per person, double occupancy, or $65, single occupancy.
  • double pneumonia — pneumonia affecting both lungs.
  • drop a bombshell — If someone drops a bombshell, they give you a sudden piece of bad or unexpected news.
  • expansion bottle — a tank collecting coolant from a radiator while an engine is heated, and from which the coolant returns to the radiator when the engine cools
  • false beechdrops — either of two parasitic or saprophytic plants of the genus Monotropa, especially the tawny or reddish M. hypopithys (false beechdrops) of eastern North America.
  • flat-bed plotter — a mechanized drafting device, usually computer driven, incorporating a moving pen whose horizontal and vertical range in two dimensions is limited only by the size of the bed of the device.
  • football special — a train service provided specially to transport football supporters to and from a match
  • garbage disposal — A garbage disposal or a garbage disposal unit is a small machine in the kitchen sink that breaks down waste matter so that it does not block the sink.
  • grant of probate — a certificate stating that a will is valid
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